U.S. Turns on Light
CHICAGO — Two minutes after standing at attention for Thursday night’s national anthem, members of the U.S. women’s soccer team were standing in incomprehension, staring at the ball as it nestled in the back of the United States’ net.
Two minutes after that, U.S. defenders Brandi Chastain and Carla Overbeck accidentally body-checked each other in the American penalty area, setting up an uncontested tee shot from eight yards that Nigeria’s Nkiru Okosieme hammered inches wide of the left goalpost.
Then the bodies started falling.
Mia Hamm, crumpling to the turf, taken down by a vicious tackle from behind.
Julie Foudy, leveled by another Nigerian blindside.
Hamm, scythed down again.
Team USA gulped hard and a Soldier Field crowd of 65,080 gasped. This supposed Women’s World Cup walkover, this anticipated red, white and blue stroll alongside Lake Michigan, was turning into one nasty Nigerian nightmare.
“Oh, no,” U.S. goalkeeper Brianna Scurry said to herself at the time, “don’t tell me it’s going to be one of those games.”
It had that look, most ominously. The tournament hosts and favorites hadn’t played 10 minutes and they were already behind, 1-0--very lucky it wasn’t 2-0. The Nigerians were running amok, and they were running into and over Americans, without as much as a sole yellow card from the remarkably passive Swiss referee, Nicole Mouidi-Petignat.
Another home football team at Soldier Field seemed on the verge of getting run off the field in another Black and Blue Division bruiser.
Thankfully, America, there were no Bears out there.
No, these footballers merely brushed the grass off their shorts, pulled up their socks and put a serious hurt on the opposition--pummeling the Nigerian defense, and the webbing of the net, for a stunning six goals in 23 minutes, en route to a 7-1 U.S. victory.
Thus, a valuable lesson was gained by the Nigerians, still newcomers to the world of international women’s soccer:
Whenever possible, try not to get the Americans mad.
Payback is a bunch of goals in a hurry. Or, as U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco drolly observed from behind the mixed-zone microphone, “Putting the ball in the back of the net is the best way to slow down a team as physical as Nigeria.”
Hamm, the focus of so much Nigerian attention, hacked here, whacked there, was the Americans’ prime instigator. Her whistling free kick in the 19th minute skipped hard through the Nigerian penalty area, just beyond sliding teammate Michelle Akers and grazing Nigeria’s Ifeanyichukwu Chiejene on its way into the net for the equalizer. Barely 60 seconds later, Hamm broke the tie with a right-footed blast--and later placed another free kick onto the head of Kristine Lilly for the Americans’ fourth goal of the flurry.
The six goals-in-23 minutes tied an American record for goals in one half. There’s no telling how many more entries would have been made in the record book, except that DiCicco pulled Hamm out of the game in the 51st minutes.
For her own well-being, DiCicco claimed.
“I thought if she stayed in, she was going to be injured,” DiCicco said, anger creeping into his voice. “She’d just been kicked in the stomach, and no card had been given.
“I couldn’t risk Mia getting kicked out of the tournament. Literally.”
DiCicco was trying hard not to turn this session with the media into a full-on referee-bash.
“You are talking to me, a novice in refereeing,” DiCicco deadpanned. “As a novice in refereeing, I believe many more yellow cards should have been handed out in the first half, to stop [the Nigerians’ fouling] and take care of it.”
Scurry said the game’s violent tone, especially in the first half, “was kind of scary. It was bad.
“The way it was explained to us before the tournament, if someone fouled a player from behind, it was supposed to be an automatic card. That wasn’t the case tonight. That’s why Tony made the substitutions he did. Because he was worried about players getting hurt.”
DiCicco said he was “proud of the way our players kept their cool and didn’t retaliate. They didn’t roll over eight times on the ground. They just got up and kept playing.”
And kept scoring. And scoring. And scoring.
Scurry, watching it from the other end of the field, was blown away by the 23-minute assault.
“I have never seen us score like that,” she said. “And I have been on the team for five years.”
Scurry laughed and said it was a good thing Nigeria hadn’t scored twice during those jittery early minutes.
“If it had been 2-0, the final score would have been 14-2,” Scurry said. “We’d have been so mad, it would have been twice as bad.”
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Anything You Can Do . . .
With its six goals in the first 45 minutes against Nigeria, the U.S. women’s team equaled the output of the men’s team in the last three World Cups. Here is the men’s scoring:
*--*
Year Games Goals 1990 3 2 1994 4 *3 1998 3 1 Totals 10 6
*--*
* Includes an own goal against Colombia
